trying to hurt her.”
Fitzhugh shook away from Imogen and paced off, lifting a hand to the place where Huntington had bandaged his wound. “Bloody fucking hell,” he snapped. “Fine. But I’m going with her.”
Imogen rushed forward. “Oscar, no! You protected me so well, but I can’t ask you to—”
“I’m going with you,” he said. “That’s final. Let me just make some arrangements.”
He said nothing else but stomped from the room. Diana smiled at Imogen and then stepped away as Aurora moved toward her. Nicholas stepped aside to speak to the duchess, and so the two friends were alone for a moment.
“Imogen,” Aurora whispered, wrapping her arms around her. “How could this happen?”
“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Imogen said and then glanced past her to the others. “Can I trust your friends?”
“Yes,” Aurora said, and didn’t hesitate.
Imogen lifted her head and looked over her shoulder toward Nicholas. “That’s the one you were in love with as a child, isn’t it? The one who left you for the army?”
“Turns out it’s more complicated than that, but yes,” Aurora said with a sigh.
Imogen stared at him. “He seems to love you.”
Aurora sucked in her breath. She knew it was true, after all. She knew he loved her without him ever saying it. And she loved him so desperately in return. Enough to sacrifice everything if it meant protecting him, helping him, giving him what he wanted.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Then hold on to that,” Imogen said, grasping her hands, suddenly desperate. “Hold onto it and to each other. Because others are not so lucky.”
“Imogen,” she whispered. “Are you talking about Mr. Fitzhugh? Because there is no denying your connection.”
Her friend shrugged a shoulder. “Connection is one thing. Protection is another. But he has made it clear that he cannot love me. So…I just would like one of us to be happy. When this is all over, I just want you to be happy.”
Fitzhugh re-entered the room, his stern face more serious than ever. “Arrangements have been made. An unmarked carriage is around the back, ready to ferry us away to whatever location you see fit, Your Grace.”
“Good,” Diana said. “Then I’ll accompany you. Mr. Gillingham, will you tell the duke of my plans? I’ll meet with him back at home. And I would suggest you and Lady Lovell also take your leave. There is nothing else you can do here. The professionals will handle this and keep your friend safe.”
Aurora could tell Nicholas wanted to argue that point, as did she, but in the end they both just nodded. She turned back to Imogen, tears blurring her eyes. “I wanted to…to save you today,” she murmured as they embraced. “To bring you home.”
“I’m so much closer to home now,” Imogen reassured her. She pulled back and kissed her cheek. “I adore you.” Then she looked past her toward Nicholas. “Mr. Gillingham, I wish I had more time to get to the know the man who has held my friend’s heart for her entire life.”
He drew back and then nodded. “And I wish I had more time to get to know the friend she loves as a sister. But we will have that time in the future.”
“Yes,” Imogen said with a shaky smile. “I know we will.”
She left then, moving toward Fitzhugh, taking his uninjured arm. Aurora frowned as they left together, with Diana trailing behind them. When they were gone, she felt Nicholas’s arms come around her, holding her steady as she bent her head and let the tears slide down her cheeks.
Finally, she wiped them away and turned into him. “It feels odd to just…leave after all this. Anticlimactic.”
“I think being shot at is climax enough,” he grunted. “Come, let me take you away.”
She looked around the room, now littered with glass and shattered furniture, and sighed. With Imogen gone, lost again to her, there was nothing else she could truly do. She nodded and he wrapped his arm around her to draw her from the room. They entered the drive, which was a cacophony of activity as the duke, Derrick, and Barber rushed around, now joined by a growing cadre of help. A crowd had formed in the park across from the scene, and she flinched.
People would recognize Nicholas. Word would surely spread like wildfire of his involvement in what would be an infamous afternoon much talked about the papers and in clubs and in ballrooms.
Everything she had feared would pass was now coming true. She bent